Election Promises

Given we don’t have an official national dance, I would like to nominate one. Let’s call it ‘the Election Day Waltz’. It has a few tricky steps, then a big finale that always ends up the same way.

New NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell was doing the dance this week. First the light steps through the campaign: ‘there will be no public sector job cuts, there will be no cuts to services’, up there on his tippy toes all grace and poise.

Then he lands with a thud. The day after the election he ‘discovers’ a ‘budget black hole’ and he starts stomping around on the very workers and services he was reassuring just days ago.

Continue reading "How can they dance when the promises are burning?" »

A small tap of the space key can make a world of difference.

Case in point - mandate: “the authority granted by a constituency to act as its representative”; as opposed to man date: “two men doing something that would be your standard date, eg going to a film, out for a meal.”

Now, Unions NSW has been working constructively with governments of all stripes for 130 years. But with all due respect, if Barry O’Farrell becomes premier after Saturday’s election, I won’t be lining up for a man date.

Continue reading "Earn your mandate Barry, or there’ll be no man date" »

There are two key questions around the issue of gay marriage. One is the pretty straight forward question of whether you support it or not, and the polls suggest it is line ball.

The other question is whether you support the idea of politicians keeping their promises. I haven’t seen the polling on that but I would presume that no research firm has bothered to do any, as you would expect about 100 per cent of people to answer yes, politicians should obviously keep their promises, what a silly question to ask.

Having gone to the last election saying there would be no carbon tax under a government she leads, Julia Gillard will now be introducing one on July 1 next year. It’s a serious breach of voter confidence and one which has done her serious political damage.

Continue reading "Gay marriage: can Julia afford another backflip?" »

There were glimpses of the old Julia Gillard on display in Question Time yesterday afternoon. The Julia Gillard who as Deputy Prime Minister used to delight in skewering the Opposition on the end of a finely-pointed, if broadly-delivered barb was back. She’d been missing in action since approximately the time she skewered Kevin Rudd in the Caucus room.

But yesterday there was a certain swagger as The Prime Minister deftly disposed of the first five questions from the Opposition, batting off the embarrassment of a union leader who’d said September 11 was an inside job, skirting the considerable inconsistencies in her refugee policy and shrugging off the details of what’s really in the Minerals Resource Rent Tax agreement.

So she was pretty well warmed up when Independent Andrew Wilkie rose to ask what looked like a fairly straight-forward question.

Continue reading "Be careful what you promise not to break your promise on" »